Apathy
by Meni G
Summary: "He loves to hate her. He hates how, of anything in the world, she makes him feel again."


**Author's notes:** ANGST ANGST ANGST it's all I write D:

Apathy

When Silver closes his eyes, he sees the worst kind of darkness. Not the type of darkness with substance; there are no hidden monsters lurking in his mind, no nightmares threatening to engulf him. It is an empty darkness. It's bleak. It's barren. There's nothing there. And it makes Silver wonder if there's nothing inside him. No substance. No soul. But when he presses two long, pale fingers to his pulse, he can feel it more strongly than ever. It's almost pointless, he muses, that his heart continues beating for no reason. No dreams, no hopes. Just purposelessness coursing through his veins. He sometimes thinks that he would give anything to even see nightmares when he closes his eyes. To see _something_.

Her eyes are always ablaze with more fire than his Typhlosion could ever make the air shimmer and dance with. Fiery determination that sets her pretty little face into a grin as she sends out Meganium for the battle, her pigtails dancing in the breeze as Meganium's Solarbeam attack illuminates the area in a blinding flash of sunlight that only seems to etch the love of life further into her features. The way she battles is almost childish, even. She revels in the moment like a wide-eyed little girl; she gasps with wonder and delight when Meganium envelops the battlefield with a whirlwind of delicate, pink petals that carry the sweet scent of her ever-approaching victory. And sure enough, he loses every time. It baffles him, of course, but it's at that moment – when he loses to her – that he feels something other than apathy permeate inside him. He's not sure if what he feels is entirely made of anger. Oh, of course he's furious. But there's some other feeling there, too, that he can't put a name to, perhaps because he's been so numb for so long. But he feels _something_.

She gives him a purpose again. It becomes almost an obsession, a driving force in the back of his defrosting mind that urges him to defeat Lyra. Make _her_ feel the emptiness of failure and defeat that's he so accustomed to. Show her that life won't always treat her kindly, won't always favour her.

But Silver still loses. It's almost inexplicable. His Pokémon were trained to new levels, his determination to win matched – no, exceeded – hers.

She doesn't ever mock him when she wins. She'll only stand there with a faint, almost sad smile tugging at her pale lips under the shadow of her sickeningly cute hat. Her calm and collected manner in the wake of his defeat only adds to his humiliation, and each time, as the losses mount, he can feel his face flushing almost as red as his hair.

He loves to hate her. He hates how, of anything in the world, she makes him _feel_ again. Of the innumerable things in the world, it's her. When he's without the numbness, he suffers. Sometimes he loves to suffer. It's a change. It makes him feel alive again. But more often than not it feels as though it will rot away his insides and leave him empty again. He wants her to say something that will make him numb again, make him fall back into his protective shell.

"I don't hate you," Lyra whispers, silhouetted against the light that filters through the opening in the cave of Victory Road, the opening that leads to the Pokémon League.

It's not the words he's been hoping for. It's not the reaction he expected to glean from her after all these months of persecution and battles. And then Lyra reaches out pulls something out from his hair. She holds it out to him; he raises his hand almost robotically, and she places a single, pink petal in the palm of his waiting, hoping hand. It's no doubt from that ridiculous overuse of Petal Dance that she often calls upon of Meganium in battle. He stares at it for a moment, and then glances back up, for once wanting to ask her something, but she's already gone, already walking towards the Pokémon League and her destiny.

It's not what he has been hoping for, and yet, he feels that – for now – it'll do. That, for now, he can sink back into a safe state of senseless apathy, that he can recover from these months of self-consuming anger and hurt and frustration, and take this single, sweetly fragranced petal as the key to the door of his old, familiar state of mind.

But his unspoken question to her still rings in the heavy silence around him: _Then what _do_ you feel about me?_


End file.
